Host Families Wanted For Foreign Students

LAKE COUNTY — An international exchange program, Youth for Understanding, is looking for Lake County families to be hosts to high school students from other countries during the 1999-2000 school year.

During the 1998-99 school year, a Grayslake family was host to a 17-year-old Danish boy, said Jennifer Talarico, a volunteer coordinator with the group's regional office in Glen Ellyn,

"It's a learning process for the whole family," Talarico said. "The kids learn to be accepting of people who have different accents, and the parents learn something about other cultures."

Families can volunteer to host students for an entire school year or just a semester.

Exchange students are required to bring their own spending money, but host families are expected to provide the student with a room and three meals a day.

And though host families aren't compensated, they are eligible for federal income-tax deductions of $50 a month. Children of host families may qualify for discounts if they decide to go abroad.

Youth for Understanding was founded in 1951 by Rachel Andresen, an Ann Arbor, Mich., educator and social worker who wanted to "heal the wounds of World War II," according to the group's Web site.

Andresen arranged for 75 young Germans to live and attend school in Michigan for a year. Since then, more than 185,000 students have participated in the group's exchange programs, living in more than 50 countries.

During the 1998-99 school year, about 250 foreign students lived with families in Illinois, Kansas, Missouri and Wisconsin, which in turn sent about 100 students abroad, Talarico said.

For more information about becoming a host family, call David Becker, the group's Vernon Hills-based volunteer representative, at 847-680-4821. The group's Web site is http://www.youthforunderstanding.org.